| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Whirligigs by O. Henry: again. They had been friends from childhood.
"Why, 'Tave!" he exclaimed, unable to reduce
his perplexity to coherence. " How -- what -- when --
where?"
"Train," said Octavia; "necessity; ten minutes ago;
home. Your complexion's gone, Teddy. Now, how --
what -- when -- where?"
"I'm working down here," said Teddy. He cast side
glances about the station as one does who tries to combine
politeness with duty.
"You didn't notice on the train," he asked, "an old
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: race. For what can be done with a people which has lost the one great
quality which was the tenure of its existence, its military skill? Let
any one read the accounts of the Turkish armies in the fifteenth,
sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, when they were the tutors and
models of all Europe in the art of war, and then consider the fact that
those very armies require now to be officered by foreign adventurers, in
order to make them capable of even keeping together, and let him ask
himself seriously, whether such a fall can ever be recovered. When, in
the age of Theodosius, and again in that of Justinian, the Roman armies
had fallen into the same state; when the Italian legions required to be
led by Stilicho the Vandal, and the Byzantine by Belisar the Sclav and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: and islands also (since the state had further entrusted the navy to
his hands), just when he had reached this pinnacle of renown and
power, and might look to turn to account his thronging fortunes; when,
too, which overtops all else, he was cherishing fond hopes to dissolve
that empire which in former days had dared to march on Hellas;--at
such a moment suffered himself not to be overmastered by these
promptings, but on receipt of a summons of the home authorities to
come to the assistance of the fatherland, obeyed the mandate of his
state as readily[15] as though he stood confronted face to face with
the Five in the hall of ephors; and thus gave clear proof that he
would not accept the whole earth in exchange for the land of his
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